On Friday morning, the big non-game story for the Vikings game looked like the team’s return to outdoor play with the regular season opener at TCF Bank Stadium.
By Friday afternoon, the explosive story about Adrian Peterson’s indictment by a Texas grand jury had broken, eclipsing anything about the team’s on-the-field action.
Amid reports from the Associated Press that the deactivated Peterson was not in attendance at the Minneapolis stadium came the All-Star running back’s first response to the events. Peterson tweeted a Biblical quote, highlighted in blue.
https://twitter.com/AdrianPeterson/status/511198837449711616
Yahoo!Sports noted that Peterson sent out the tweet at almost the exact time the Vikings were kicking off against the Patriots without him. The story noted that most of the comments immediately under the tweet were not supportive of Peterson.
Before the game, CBS commentator Boomer Esiason angrily demanded that Peterson be held accountable. “That guy should never be on the field again,” Esiason said. “This was a whipping of a four-year-old boy, for God’s sake. And I’ll tell you right now, that’s sickness to me. That player should never be on the field again until he’s held accountable.”
A reporter from WCCO who was covering tailgating before the game tweeted a picture of a woman clad in an Adrian Peterson jersey who was “playfully hitting people outside TCF Bank Stadium with a wooden stick, or switch.”
Here's a pic. pic.twitter.com/EYY3Woulwm
— Kim Johnson (@KimJohnsonCFT) September 14, 2014
The photo, posted to Twitter, has been widely retweeted, including on the sports website Deadspin.
